Dragon Age: Origins
Levyn
Chapter Sixteen – The Lyrium Wells
"This is just jollying wonderful!" Zac shouted as he waved his battleaxe and slaughtered whichever darkspawn came anywhere near him. He, along with several other warriors, were standing just outside the small entrance of the Scholar's chamber, trying to fend off more of the bigger creatures as they entered the room. "We got a horde of darkspawn here to defeat while whoever that sodding talking squid is goes to the Fade to perform some sickening witchy ritual?"
"And if we all very unfortunately die from that lot," Wolf shouted back, "Gwaren will be stamped to the ground." Wolf's shield bashed a Genlock and pushed him toward a high shelf. Piles of heavy books fell from the dusty shelf and landed on the top of the small dwarf-sized creature, promptly knocking him off in the process. The templar rushed forward and sank his blade deep into the unconscious darkspawn. The sinister creature gurgled and gushed out several mouthful of dark blood before it finally stopped moving.
"We don't have time to make the acquaintance of those bloody folk," Tainjen said as he sank his sword deep into the chest of a giant armored Ogre. "I suggest we split up: Some of us head into the Fade with Levyn, and the rest stay behind and hold up those bastards!"
"Excellent notion," Levyn pointed out through gritted teeth, "but there isn't really any point to risk any of your lives for me." The blood mage withdrew his dagger from his sleeve and slit his left hand. Crimson immediately gushed out of the long cut, overflowing and dribbling onto the ground. "I will go through that thing and enter the Fade myself. I did it once before; it shouldn't be any different this time"
The blood mage threw his hands forward as he chanted the ancient Tevinter syllables and sent splattered blood toward several darkspawn, who were in the midst of fighting a group of Dalish elves and Gwarenian dwarves. The red droplets immediately attached themselves onto the dark creatures. The sinister monsters' backs suddenly went rigid, their eyes blank. The next thing they did was turn around and start attacking their comrades.
"Excellent! That shall buy us some time," Lanaya sighed as she watched the darkspawn now busily fighting against each other. "Levyn, let me assure you, as much as I like the idea of small numbers entering the Fade - fewer members will attract less attention as we trespass the unknown - some of us will really have to come with you. I haven't been into Fade myself, but from what I have been told, it is different every time you go in and nothing appears to be what it seems. There were just so many demon and minions in there, not to mention traps, you really need someone there to fight side by side with you."
"Don't even think of getting in there by youself, maleficar!" Wolf grunted. "I am pretty sure I've told you I will keep my eyes on you. If you are going in, so am I."
"Keep in mind we cannot let both mages enter the Fade and leave us with none." Tainjen joined the conversation after slaying another of the Children. "A mage is vital for any Deep Roads exploration. We will need you to stay with us, Lanaya."
"Then I shall come with you, lethallin," one of the Dalish fighters said as he stepped forward. Like other Dalish the blood mage had seen so far, he also had lallaslin—similar to a tattoo, most of people in Feralden called it. His hair was a mixture of silvery grey and black. He gave his keeper a brief bow, who inclined her head in return, before tilted his head slightly toward Levyn. "My name is Athras. I had witnessed something far worse than any Fade creature. I am not afraid to enter that realm with you."
Lanaya smiled. "He's a brave fighter, lethallin. You've got yourself a valuable warrior."
"I will also offer you my service, friend of Gwaren." One of the Gwarenian dwarven females stepped forward. She was smeared with darkspawn blood. Her long, flaming red hair, tied into a loose bum, glittered slightly under the dim light. The blood mage recognized her as one of the guards near the front gate when the darkspawn first attacked the city. "Daraga is my name. You have saved our city twice. It will be our disgrace not to fight by your side as you enter the realm of dreams."
"Urh…thank you," Levyn scratched the back of his head and stammered. The blood mage felt his heart overflow with gratitude and warmth. He certainly did not expect this many people to voluntarily enter the Fade with him. After all, it wasn't very long ago that he was a wanted maleficar in Ferealdon—people usually stayed as far away from him as possible whenever his true identity was revealed. Entering somewhere unknown? Impossible.
"Better do this quickly, mate, those sodding things won't be happily fighting for us for long," Zac shouted from just outside the doorframe.
"Indeed." Levyn swallowed. His grip on his stave tightened. He took a deep breath and walked toward the small Lyrium Wells chamber. Behind him, Athras gave Lanaya a deep bow, with hands in front of his chest, while Daraga inclined her head toward the rest of the crew. Wolf stabbed his sword deep into the chest of another Genlock and tossed it across the cavern. The templar straightened his back, wiped the blood splashed over his face, leaving a long smudge over it, before giving the blood mage an affirmative nod.
"We are off." The blood mage turned and prepared to head toward the Lyrium Wells.
"May the Maker watch over you," Tainjen tilted his head aside.
"We will seal up the chamber behind you, lethallin." Lanaya reached out her hand to touch Levyn's and squeezed them tightly. "Should you locate the Scholar and destroy it, make sure you create a portal and exit from there."
"I understand," the apostate nodded. "By the name of Holy Andraste, see you all back at Gwaren."
"May the Spirit of the Forest watch over you, lethallin." The Dalish keeper's voice suddenly trembled slightly. "Dareth shiral."
"Uh…"dareth shiral." Levyn's face turned red. Once again, he did not know what to say. Saying goodbye had never been his specialty.
He turned around and entered the Lyrium Wells chamber. The large lyrium sphere floated in the air, emitting ghastly blue light. A low humming noise echoed around the room. A jab of pain pierced through his skull. The blood mage shut his eyes tightly, holding his head and hissing in pain.
"Andraste's knickerweasels!" He staggered backward. "I forgot…I forgot all those…this much lyrium…isn't very friendly to us…when being this close!"
He wasn't the only one. Athras, even Wolf the templar, both seemed to be having trouble to stand as soon as they stepped into the room. All of their faces were as white as blank vellum.
"We seemed to have no problem when Zac was showing off his lyrium key," the templar grunted through his gritted teeth.
"This…this is just way too much…." It took Levyn almost all his strength not to collapse onto the floor. "How…how did that Tevinter magister withstand these…when it was first invented?"
"Allow me, my friend." Daraga pressed her hand on his waist briefly before she walked past him and approached the device with caution. She tilted her head and frowned slightly; she seemed as though she was trying to remember exactly what those creatures did to activate the mechanism.
"Humph." She rubbed her chin thoughtfully before she carefully placed her feet on the stone tile the darkspawn set his foot on just a moment ago. "I think this was what he did…"
The familiar loud bang from the chains moving reverberated in the confined space once again. The lyrium sphere drifting in the center of the room began to rotate. When it stopped, the entire cavern was again filled with tinted blue light. At the same time, the maddening headache had tormented Levyn, Athras and Wolf was gone.
"Praise the Spirit!" Athras straightened up and investigated their surroundings. "I am not sure if we are in…"
"Oh, we are." The blood mage moved toward the door and carefully took a peek outside. Wolf steadied himself and quickly joined the blood mage.
The Scholar's larger adjoining cavern was no longer there. As the matter of fact, they were no longer in the Deep Roads. The chamber outside had been replaced by a rather small stone archway with a pergola hovering overhead. Through the surrounding mist that cloaked everything, it was hard to tell where the archway led. Levyn wrapped his hands around the magic staff tightly as he exited the room. The others followed suit. As soon as the last of them passed beneath the arch, there was the sound of something crumbling behind them. The four of them jerked their heads around just in time to see the whole room and the carved rock door disappear. They cast each other a grim look, knowing full well what this meant.
The remaining party had destroyed the device.
There was no return.
"Now what do we do?" The apostate sighed quietly. Direction had never been his specialty. During the time when he was still in the Tower, there wouldn't be a day that went by without him being lost somewhere, the First Enchanter had to send templars to go find him.
"There seemed to be something there, lethallin." Athras pointed at the flickering light in the fog.
"Humph…" Wolf moved closer to the edge of the pillar and narrowed his eyes to have a closer look. "A source of light. I wonder what that is?"
"You guys!" Daraga rolled her eyes: "Just walk over there and you will see."
"What happens if it's something…" The elf hunter turned his head back and sneered at the Dwarf.
"Well, then we will worry about it then, won't we?" She chuckled and began to walk down the pergola. "Let's go. No time to dwell on the finer details!"
"Have you been to the Fade before?" Levyn arched his eyebrow.
"Actually, I have." The petite dwarven guard held her sword in her hand tightly and cautiously placed the shield in front of her. "Back when I was little, my family was cast out to the surface because of some petty crime they weren't even aware off. We were heading south and just went past Amaranthine. I think it was near the Blackmarsh area. I can't recall exactly what happened. Our family was lost in that bush for ages; kept walking in and out of what felt like some kind of dream. It was only afterward we were told we had ventured past the Tear and into the Fade by accident. Must have touched some kind of artifact there or something… To me it was like a very, very bad dream, monsters, wraiths, and dodgy looking people…it took me ages to recover."
Wolf stared down at Daraga, as though hardly daring to believe what she had just said. "Didn't know you've been through that at such a young age. I thought you were born and grew up here."
"My parents settled down here after that." The dwarf shrugged. "Besides, no one asked."
A sudden shriek disturbed their tension-easing chitchat. Several ashe wraiths rose from the ground and began to assault them at once. Flames flickered all over their bodies. As they attacked the surprised crew, the creatures sneered and taunted, enjoying the pleasure of watching their face thickened in fear. Levyn cast Stone Fist; bashing a few of them backward while Athras and Daraga rushed over and finished them off with swords. Wolf's body was glowing with silvery light. It became brighter as a surge of energy whooshed through his body and burst outward. Several wraiths around him screamed painfully and evaporated within seconds, leaving nothing but dark marks on the ground.
"Lovely, so this is what the Fade is like," The templar grunted after running his great sword through one particularly nasty, hard to kill off wraith. "I think the Order of Templars should have a course, similar to what the Tower has for its mages, so we get to experience what it's like fighting demons."
"I was told by the First Enchanter it wasn't possible." The blood mage stood up and patted the dust off his robe. "At the moment, the Tower only had enough power to send one person in at a time. So to have a party of templars inside the Fade is a bit unwise."
"What, you don't think we can look after ourselves in here?" Wolf arched his eyebrow challengingly.
"Not enough lyrium." Levyn cast the templar a side-glance before he continued on.
They finally reached what seemed like the end of the long pergola. In front of a beautiful flowerbed stood a familiar bronze brazier, its shallow dish filled with lyrium. Around the brazier was a rune circle marked with strange symbols that no one recognised. Knowing this artifact so well, the blood mage knew instantly what it was. After all, he watched his friends stepped toward the device one by one and headed into the unknown.
"Portal," he commented, and heard the others behind him gasp. "But where does this lead us?"
"We don't really have much choice." Athras looked around. "There isn't any other path."
"So we can only go ahead." Levyn chewed his lips thoughtfully.
"Looks like it." Daraga nodded in agreement.
The mage reached out and touched the lyrium inside the dish. The silver substance immediately coated his fingers and started to crawl up his palm. The apostate startled, trying to shake it off. The lyrium stuck even tighter. It climbed all over his body, eventually creeping into his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was standing at the front gate of a city, or the city's Fade version. The blood mage blinked, and again. It took him a few minutes to register where he was.
He was in Gwaren.
Everything here looked familiar, yet somehow he felt something twitching inside him, screaming at him to run as far away and as fast as possible. There was blood everywhere, on the walls, the doors, the cobblestones, even the banner that hung overhead by the gate. Dead bodies were scattered everywhere. Some he recognised belonged to the darkspawn, some were humans, and some were beyond recognition. There were piles of bones here and there, which the mage suspected once belonged to the walking corpses. Blood curdling laughter could be heard as far away as the docks. The blood mage could not help but tremble. Even given this was the Fade version of the city, it was still too horrible to see.
Several loud gasps behind him indicated that his companions had also arrived safely and saw the tarnished city.
"This…this isn't real, is it?" Daraga staggered backward and nearly collapsed onto the ground.
"No, we are still in the Fade as far as I can tell." Levyn carefully scanned around. "But this sight…I think this part has been tainted by the darkspawn."
"So…I don't have to worry about those dead people?" Wolf's face looked stricken.
"Not at the moment, no. But we need to be quick, I am not sure when the Scholar trapped Gladys in the Fade, or who else was coming with her." The mage frowned.
"Are you sure, lethallin?" Athras could not take his eyes off the dead body that hung on the wall, with a quaterstaff stabbed through the heart.
"I am…. this is the Fade, nothing is for certain, my friend." The blood mage sighed. "But what you fear the most usually is the first thing that happens."
"Then we better get going, mage," Wolf grunted.
Levyn gave him a quiet nod and headed into the city.
They quickened their steps and rushed across the square. The ground shook, and the clouds gathered. Two giant spiked beasts sprung into view. The blood mage and the templar's eyes immediately narrowed. They recognized the creatures. Towering over them, the two Fade creatures' beady eyes looked at them with a certain degree of satisfaction.
"Arh…so the tainted one was correct after all," one of the monsters sneered. "We have our snack right here, nice and warm and ready to serve!"
"Flesh and blood, waiting for us to feast on them and use their body as our vessel," the creature's partner giggled. "Without us even wasting a drop of sweat over how to channel into the mortal world."
"What…what are those?" Daraga drew out her battleaxes.
"Pride Demons," Levyn spat.